Ralph Northam says he's "not the person in that photo," won't resign

Steve Earley/Staff

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, with his wife Pam at his side, said at a press conference in the Executive Mansion on Saturday, February 2, 2019 that he is not the person in the racist photo in the EVMS yearbook and he will not resign.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, with his wife Pam at his side, said at a press conference in the Executive Mansion on Saturday, February 2, 2019 that he is not the person in the racist photo in the EVMS yearbook and he will not resign. (Steve Earley/Staff)

Gov. Ralph Northam vehemently denies being either of the two people depicted in a racist photo on a page of his medical school yearbook.

The Virginia governor refused to resign at a press conference Saturday afternoon, despite a mounting number of legislators and members of the public calling upon him to do so. He went back on a Friday night acknowledgement that he dressed up as blackface or put on Ku Klux Klan robes at a party, as the photo depicts.

“When my staff showed me the photo in question yesterday, I was seeing it for the first time,” he said Saturday.

He said he never purchased a yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School, which he graduated from in 1984. He also said he never submitted that photo but did submit others that appear alongside it: a portrait of him, one of him kneeling in a farm setting and one of him sitting against a convertible.

In a written statement and video Friday, he admitted he was one of the people in the photo but wouldn’t say which person.

On Saturday, he said he gave that response based on the evidence he had at the time, even though he said he knew from the first time he looked at the photo that it wasn’t him.

“I recognize that many people will find this difficult to believe,” he said.

He hypothesized that the photo may have accidentally been placed on his yearbook page after talking to an old classmate who said that happened “numerous” times in that yearbook.

“I am not the person in that photo,” he reiterated several times, adding he wanted to “set the record straight.”

Other instances of racism

Reading from a statement, he said he had a “clear memory” of a real instance in 1984 in which he darkened his face — for a dance contest in San Antonio, where he dressed up as the singer Michael Jackson.

The governor, who was in the military at the time, said he put shoe polish on his face and performed the moonwalk to win the dance contest, not realizing that could be offensive.

“I look back now and regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like this,” he said.

He was also asked about nicknames that appear with his photo in a 1981 Virginia Military Institute yearbook when he attended college there.

He said his “main” nickname in high school and college was “Goose” because his voice cracked and changed octaves, but two people that were a year ahead of him at VMI gave him the nickname “Coonman,” a possible reference to an offensive racial slur.

“I don’t know their motives,” he said of his classmates.

Several hours before he addressed the media, a group of protesters stood outside the governor’s mansion, turning to the house at one point to shout in unison: "Blackface. No place."

Jewel Gatling, a longtime supporter of Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax who would inherit Northam's position if the governor resigned, said if Northam had apologized earlier, knowing the photo existed, he could have been forgiven. Wearing a t-shirt featuring Fairfax on it, Gatling told the protestors, "we will not allow this in our state."

The small crowd included four members of the Portsmouth chapter of the NAACP. The group's president, James Boyd, said blackface was wrong and "intolerable."

"It's time for all of us to stand together and say, 'enough is enough,'" he said.

"This is about a sickness that exists in our state," said Louie Gibbs Jr., vice president of the chapter.

Resigning the "easy way out"

Despite continued calls from the Virginia legislature, the Congressional delegation, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Attorney General Mark Herring to step down, Northam said resigning would be taking the easy way out.

“If I were to listen to the voices calling on me to resign my office today, I could spare myself from the different path that lies ahead,” he said. “I could avoid an honest conversation about harmful actions from my past.”

Instead, he called on Virginians to accept his account of what happened and rebuild trust with the General Assembly members. He said this was an opportunity to have a real conversation about racism in Virginia.

But, as the General Assembly renewed calls for him to step down after the press conference, resignation didn’t seem totally off the table.

“If we get to the point where we feel that we are not effective, that we are not efficient, not only for our caucus but for Virginia, then we will revisit this and make decisions,” he said.

One official that hasn’t called for Northam’s resignation is Fairfax, who would succeed him as governor.

Northam said he and Fairfax met in person Friday and have spoken on the phone several times.

“At this critical and defining moment in the history of Virginia and this nation, we need leaders with the ability to unite and help us rise to the better angels of our nature,” Fairfax said in a statement.

The governor said he plans to pursue the identities of the people in the photos, using facial recognition software among other tools.

“I want to have all the facts, and I want Virginia to have all the facts,” he said.

Asked what he would do if he were forced out of office, he said he would take it one day at a time.

Staff writer Gordon Rago contributed reporting.

Protesters demanding his resignation gather outside the governor's mansion in Richmond on Saturday, February 2, 2019 after a racist photo of Gov. Ralph Northam was found in his 1984 medical school yearbook.